As any parent or teacher knows, kids love sharing their stories with others, whether that story came from a dream, real life, or their imagination. Give them a pen and paper and they can spin a tale at the drop of a hat. Give them a marker and they will draw an entire world on a single sheet of paper.
The real magic, however, happens when you give them the means to share their stories not only with teachers and parents, but with their classmates, their school or even the whole world. Publishing stories for students—written by students—gives them a chance to tell the stories that matter to them and proudly present them to peers who will be able to fully appreciate and relate to them.
The Power of Shared Stories
No matter how involved you or your students’ parents may be in their lives, at the end of the day no one knows what it’s like to be a kid today quite like other kids. Helping your students share their work with their peers gives them a chance to foster important connections with other people who are on their level in terms of age and experience.
It also gives other students a chance to read stories that they can truly relate to. Rather than reading another young adult or children’s novel written by an author who may or may not remember what it was like to be a kid, they’ll be able to enjoy stories by students just like them, stories they understand better than anyone else ever could. It makes students on both sides of the publishing process—both the authors and their audience—feel understood, and that’s something every kid deserves to feel.
A #proudauthor shares her newly published book with a fellow student.
Motivating and Inspiring Kids Through Storytelling
Publishing is, without a doubt, one of the easiest and most creative ways to motivate and inspire your students to try their hardest. In order to achieve the best final result—a classbook they can really be proud of—they’ll be more willing than ever to put in their best effort, and their efforts will pay off both in the quality of their work and in how they’ll inspire each other along the way.
These effects aren’t limited to a single classroom, either. Your students can make their books available to other classes via special events such as publishing parties or by sending a copy of your classbook to the school library. You can also show their classbook off to an even broader audience by posting about it in an online teaching community. Doing so allows your students to share the wealth and inspire other classes in their school or around the world with their amazing accomplishment, motivating some to even try a classbook project of their own.
#Proudauthors at Russellville Elementary are excited to show off their new books!
Publishing Your Students’ Stories
The key to publishing your students’ work successfully is making them feel like “real authors.” Working with a professional student publishing company allows you to go the full nine yards and walk your kids through the entire writing and publishing process from start to finish, even the pins and needles excitement of sending off a draft and waiting with bated breath for the final product to arrive. And when it finally does, they can see for themselves just how impressive their stories really are—in beautiful full-color print.
For more free teaching resources—including publishing tips, project ideas and more—be sure to check out our online teacher’s lounge, and sign up today for your free publishing kit!
Image sources: Lead image via Pixabay; Images 1, 2 via Twitter